When life's kicking your butt, how about a theme song? It's all about the ukulele!

I just realized it's November! It was the spectacular show of color this morning that clued me in. Plus the very unhappy kid raking a mile of yellow on the sidewalk. I smiled huge at the thought of sending my petulant teenager to rake and scoop leaves. My mind jumped from that thought to the first fall I spent in Washington. I was homesick and surrounded by strangers, but the colors fed a part of my soul that has never gone hungry since. There was this one day I was determined to rake leaves just like in the movies. Since I didn't have a lawn because I lived in the dorms I walked and walked looking for some old person who should not be raking leaves in the first place. Apparently, Tacoma is filled with spry elderly because I had not a single taker. So happy fall! Here's to yummy hot coffees and colors that make our hearts sing. And on that note (I'm killing with these puns!), here's my November theme song. It's all about the ukulele (for no good reason).

Joe Brown singing I'll See You In My Dreams

Writer or collector?

This week while I measured and cut a thousand times making flashcards for the team I work with a teacher down the hall read a story to his class. Maybe his door was open, probably not. The man can project. But while I counted and cut, I smiled and kept smiling because he was creating memories. He was cementing his presence as a teacher who loves teaching and I cataloged him for my writer shelf alongside my eighth grade math teacher who told my mom not to worry about my grade. "She'll get it."

It got me to thinking about the rest of the memories on my shelves. A hoarder of feelings and senses ready to be dusted off and carefully held in a story of my choosing I sometimes feel like I should come with a disclaimer: I will collect you in some way. Sorry.





By mat Walker from Brighton, UK (Video archive) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons 

Grit

There's this hill at the end of my weekend bridge runs I call John's Hill. My 6 year old told me I can make it up the hill, but I have to think I can. So I named it after him. It's a beast and I am not a graceful runner. My blindingly bright shoes clop. My lungs crush air into this terrible sawing noise I do my best to hush if another runner crosses my path. My undermining thoughts try to convince me I could walk the dang thing faster. Then I remember one word. Grit. I'm running the hill because I decided to. Nothing more is needed. I figure reaching certain dreams are like that too.






"By RustyObjects (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons"

Rachel Caine rocks the planet with Ink and Bone! Review time!

I tore through this story, not quickly, but with this hunger to be in the middle of Jess's world, to be inside his head and know the people around him. From the beginning your heart will pound. Even as a young kid his introspection crawled into my heart and took over. The world is an alternative here-and-now with this all-seeing, all-knowing Library that controls all information, even controls how, when, and where you have access to it. You can imagine not everyone liked that plan for society. So there are your activists, the Burners. Then you have the black market traders who like that plan because it's their bread and butter. The idealists are a danger to everyone, especially themselves. The bad guys range in degrees. But throughout there was this creeping dread that no one had it right yet. The Burners have some thoughts on the right track, but mostly they are a bunch of crazies. The Library scholars live in golden towers far removed from the real world. The young idealists who desperately want to become scholars fight to serve the Library, but fight even harder to hold onto their long held vision of an ideal run amuck. Rachel Caine's Ink and Bone had a very Orwellian vibe all the way down to the feeling that this could have been performed over the radio with static and voices that drew you in. There was also a steampunk slash hopeless dystopian feel. The world building was phenomenal. The characters will be with me...forever. I'm hooked. On a book girl side note, I remember reading an emotional post from Rachel Caine years ago about censorship. I think it was in response to hate mail or some internet troll and when I started reading Ink and Bone I thought of my walkaway feelings from that post of Caine's, that any kind of censorship is a suffocating band around freedom. She didn't say it like that, but I had to breathe deeply after reading it. If I was a betting girl I'd say Caine spun those feelings until an amazing intricate world was formed and created Ink and Bone.

When life's kicking your butt, how about a theme song? [15] The perfect song for that book!

March is here. Impossible! My oldest starts up Special Olympics swimming this month and my youngest will continue with his art classes. My list is filled with author girl goals and find my spirit goals and hopefully wake up early and workout goals. What's your March look like? Whether you're just going to sit back and enjoy the cherry trees blossoming or you plan to kick your butt into action, how about doing all that to music? This month we're tapping books for inspiration.

Into the Mystic drops me into the book Slammed by Colleen Hoover. There's a part of the song where I can see the main characters dancing together, not giving into the temptation of crossing the line, but unable to resist having this one moment that says everything. Great freaking song.

Give Into Me from the movie Country Strong is so the book The Gamble by Kristen Ashley. I don't want to say anything about the book because I'm buddy reading it with Brandee only I accidentally read it before her. I'm a bad buddy, but awesome book and song, right?

#LGBT Reading Challenge sign up post! Plus a music video.

I'm doing it. Committing to a reading challenge. Yep. Last year I participated in LGBT month and as a result discovered so many wonderful books I just had to read. I added them to my TBR list and they have remained there patiently sitting through one reading bender after another. My most recent has been Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles. So good, but not LGBT at all unless things switch up pretty drastically. There's still a chance Cinder hooks up with Scarlet, but I doubt it. If you're interested in signing up, click on the pretty purple graphic to learn more about it. I plan to hit the Genre Hopper category of reading 3-10 LGBT books from any genre. 

Oh, and just because here's a Shane Mack song from the movie Shelter. Good stuff. Happy reading, people!

Simple Pleasures

A while back I decided to write a sports book. I love sports movies. I love YA contemporary romances. And I freaking love basketball. My five year old had just joined his first basketball team. It was inspiring (and adorable).  

Obviously I needed to get into the head of my main character...meaning I had to get back to shooting hoops, something I hadn't done in over a decade. So I escaped every chance I could get and shot around. Forty-five minutes here, an hour there, and man, sore bloody fingers everywhere. I became obsessed. 

Then one day with the sun setting and the outdoor hidden away court getting dark, I tried a hook shot. I do not shoot hook shots because I sort of suck. And it dawned on me. I didn't give a shit about writing this story, not really. I didn't even have a name for my main character. I stood frozen with the ball locked in place with my feet and a scene running over and over in my head. My dad visiting from Colorado passing the ball back and forth with my son in the garage because it was raining outside. "The leukemia makes me tired," he said as he bent down to pick up the ball. Shit. 

My dad wasn't going to teach John how to play when John reached his high school years the way he taught me. Those nights on the court with my dad built a relationship I'd never had with him. We talked and laughed. One time I cussed, but we were playing 2 on 2 so it was okay. I wasn't good enough of a player to teach John. That's all I could think before I shut it down, before I gave myself the lie that a paranormal romance writer who loved the world of weird was suddenly going to go straight up contemporary. 

I shot around here and there, but it broke my heart a little each time. Then the boys were back in school. I was back at work. Life distanced me from the lie that drove me and the truth that stopped me, and the ball sat in the trunk of my car.

Yesterday after growling at my flat ball, I walked across the street and asked my neighbor if he had a pump. He did. It was the very best feeling to dribble that ball again. I smiled and shot. Maybe I bounced a little I was that happy. And then I tried a terrible hook shot and laughed. It was good stuff. 

Feeling giddy anyone? Check out this song.

Crushing on anyone new or looking to crush on the one you've been with forever? Fall into this song (I like you by Ben Rector) and get giddy. It's a little bit of magic I tell you!

I'm a terrible football girl

Some of you know I'm a total sports movie girl, but my mom and sister have been on a year long push to suck me into the world of the Seahawks and everything else football. I used to hang out on my computer during the games and now I growl if they change the channel to watch one of their shows before a game is over. That is not right. I'm not even sure what's happening here, but it's possible I love football. I love it when there's a loose ball and the guys just keep jumping on top of the pile. It's even more fun when the refs have to toss the players off the pile. I'm starting to have favorite players on other teams too. That has to be a bad non-football girl sign. Like Cam Newton. Wow. A few weeks ago Jon Ryan faked the other team out and instead of kicking the ball (punting?), he ran it in for a first down. I jumped to my feet, "That's just like in the movies!"

"By Doublezero at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons"